Guests

Full Transcript

0:00:03 – John Sahagian
Credit unions really have to understand clearly what their strategic vision is, and they have to also understand, regardless of where the world is going, how will their strategic vision position them to sustain success, regardless of what’s coming? A big part of that is understanding the role data and technology are going to play in your strategic vision, and I think that we tend to look at technology and data as an IT thing I’ve talked about before. We really need to start building technical competency within all the different business units. It needs to become an enterprise competency in order for us to really drive it forward at the speed that our members expect. And then, lastly, I think that as we’re building these visions and these roadmaps, we need to be really careful not to trip over ourselves. We need to dream big. We need to expect big things out of our companies and what we’re able to deliver to our members, but we also have to make sure that we set our expectations and our roadmapping properly so that we execute small. Dream big, but you know, execute small.

0:01:25 – Fred Cadena
Hello and welcome to Banking on Disruption. I’m Fred Cadena. We have another awesome guest on deck for episode eight John Sahagian of BCU in Chicago. John leaves BCU’s enterprise data strategy. I’ve known John for about five years now and he brings a strong point of view on how to lead a successful digital transformation program. After our interview at our Quick Take segment, d&n will be assessing X updates from the four day work week experiment and more AI news with Microsoft, google and Salesforce all in the mix.

While you’re listening to this podcast, why not take a moment to follow us on LinkedIn at the Banking on Disruption podcast and on Instagram at at Banking on Disruption? Now sit back and strap in, because our show is coming to you right now. On this episode, david and I are excited to welcome John Sahagian. John Sahagian leads BCU’s enterprise data strategy, which enables the Chicago based $6 billion credit union to be more data driven in its purpose of empowering people to discover financial freedom. In his role, he’s responsible for developing more unified, intelligent and relevant experiences for a rapidly growing and diverse membership. John has 20 plus years of financial services experience spanning service sales, lending and marketing Heals at MBA from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and as a certified chief executive. John, I could not be more excited to have you on the podcast today.

We first met, I think, about five years ago while you were looking for a partner to help you implement Salesforce at BCU, and I just like to kick things off today by asking you what initially drew you and BCU to Salesforce as your member engagement platform, and how has it evolved over the past five years.

0:03:15 – John Sahagian
Fred, good, good to chat with you again. As you may recall, when we were talking about this five years ago, I mean, bcu didn’t have a CRM, and we were. You know, one of the first things we were primarily looking for was a CRM, and I think a lot of credit you use start there. So we wanted a CRM, but we also we wanted a lot more right. We were looking for an, you know, an API driven platform that would allow us to put all the data and intelligence that we have about our members to work.

And you mentioned a minute ago in my bio that you know I’ve been around credit unions for a long time and you know I used to lead a service organization and I’m going back a ways here now. But even back then, you know, 20 years ago, I remember how frustrating it was how my agents had to pop between so many different systems and how we get all this data, and it was, like you know, I felt, you know, powerless to use all this data, that we had to actually make the experiences of our members better.

0:04:17 – Fred Cadena
You may have created an island there at BCU, but I will tell you from being out in the field, it’s still that way. A lot of places you know there’s a lot of swivel chair.

0:04:25 – John Sahagian
For sure. Well, and that was the thing, fred, is that you know I’ve come into different roles since that time, but here I am, 20 years on or, at the time, 15 years on and it was like, wow, those problems still persist. You know, we haven’t gotten a lot further. So that was, you know, that was a really big part of, you know, kind of starting up a data, of data practice at BCU, but also really looking hard for something that would help us connect systems, and we really realize the importance of data connectivity to actually powering these modern experiences that our members really, really want.

0:05:02 – Dane Grove
So if we were ever going to do that.

0:05:04 – John Sahagian
We were going to need something like a Salesforce to build in that could leverage all the data we have to create great experiences, and that’s what we’ve been doing.

0:05:11 – Fred Cadena
That’s fantastic. You mentioned a lot of different systems involved in that. You know customer service experience. I’m sure that’s probably a part of it, but I don’t want to answer for you. What have been some of the biggest challenges or roadblocks in implementing Salesforce and how did you overcome them?

0:05:27 – John Sahagian
Well, I mean, hey, you know, it changes hard right. And I think for a lot of people that I’ve talked to, they get frustrated because they’re putting in Salesforce or something like it and they feel like, well, I’m, you know, I’m buying a, you know, just a fully packed, fully built out solution. But really what we’re, what we were doing we realized that at the time was, you know, we’re completely shifting how BCU thinks about technology and about building solutions. Right, I’ll never forget when we got our, our Salesforce, you know, we signed the contracts and everything got turned on and I got my log in and I’m like cool, and I logged in and I’m like it’s a blank screen, you know.

0:06:09 – Fred Cadena
Now what.

0:06:09 – John Sahagian
Where’s all the cool stuff? Right. So Salesforce is super powerful. It’s like an erector set, right, but it is what you make it.

And you know, BCU, like we’ve been really, really successful over the years, doing a lot of awesome things, having a lot of great success, and a lot of that lied with our ability to kind of contort ourselves, you know, with all with with a lot of kind of antiquated back end systems that don’t talk to each other to kind of force them to do what we wanted them to do.

You know, it was kind of like we were like the MacGyver credit union, you know, where you take a piece of string and bubble gum and a nine volt battery and you, you know, you build an atomic bomb or something, and so that’s what we’re really good at doing, and that’s really really different from what’s like okay, you don’t have to. You don’t have to, like, maneuver around all this antiquated technology. You’ve got all the tools you need. Build something correctly, design an experience that is, you know, really powerful and lasting and impactful. That’s a totally different way of thinking, rather than just saying we got to figure out how to solve this problem with, you know, string and bubble gum. So that’s been really, really difficult. Actually for us is, you know, and I guess you could call it change management, but it’s also kind of design management and how we approach problem solving to really optimize awesome, modern experiences instead of just trying to string a bunch of antiquated things together.

0:07:35 – Dane Grove
Wow, You’ve. You’ve definitely, John, gone like soup to nuts, so to speak. Right, the full gamut of things. Reflecting back, what tips do you have for other credit unions just starting their journey with Salesforce?

0:07:50 – John Sahagian
Well, I mean, like I just said, I think Salesforce is a platform. You know you use it to build things. So I think I was just talking with a credit union yesterday at an event and you know they had gotten Salesforce and they were a little bit disappointed with it. But they had dreamed really, really small, like they bought it for one specific thing that didn’t really do a whole lot. And I think if you dream really small with Salesforce, you’re probably going to be disappointed. You know what I mean. I think you need to. You know, if you dream too big, you’re also going to stall out too right Because it’s so expansive. So you know, I think when you start your journey with Salesforce, you got to find that right balance, right. You need to be clear about what you want to accomplish with it and then you need to execute.

I think also, something that that we took seriously out of the gate and I think it really, you know, worked out well for us is that we realized that the power of Salesforce is the data that you’re able to put into it and get out of it right. So you can’t skimp on data. You know we, right out of the gates, we’re like there’s going to be. You know these systems that we need to have talking to Salesforce in real time if it’s ever going to drive any value for us. So don’t skimp on the data you feed into it.

I think also and this, maybe, is something that scares people away from a big platform like this but you don’t want to underestimate the resources you’re going to need to actually utilize it, right. I mean, you know this is something that you start with and we we did this. You know we had a very clear vision of what we wanted to do and what we justified that we were going to do with Salesforce, but we weren’t even, you know, past step one of putting that in place before people were like, oh wait a minute, we can do this. Oh, wait a minute, we can use it over here. Oh, wait a minute, we can. And suddenly you know, if you, if you chase down all those things, you become very overwhelmed. So I think you need to find that balance. What is it specifically that you’re trying to solve for today? But you also have to have that longer term vision for Salesforce. Otherwise, you know you’re going to get off track.

0:10:01 – Dane Grove
I think especially point number two. You know, pulling the, pulling the data in from all those different sources like how often are people coming up short? Came across. An article recently posted on Salesforcecom indicated that in 2023, only like 29% of customer data is pushed into Salesforce. So really, really wise words. Let me ask you this how has your team and culture evolved through this digital transformation? What adjustments have been critical? Anything come to mind?

0:10:40 – John Sahagian
Well, you know, the first thing that comes to mind, honestly, is that I think in the past we had it’s a mindset, really right. So in the past we had this mindset that, oh, this has to do with data, or this has to do with tech, oh, that, that’s IT, right.

0:10:55 – Fred Cadena
Yeah.

0:10:57 – John Sahagian
And whereas today you know where we’re at and we’re trying to continue to push down this route is that data and technology are key business capabilities. And you know not just that, that that you use tech and data in business, but I think you know actually developing technology and data solutions within the business is critically important to how your business is going to be designed and operate and succeed. So you know when you know. For us, anyways, when we stood up our data practice, when we stood up our Salesforce practice, we didn’t do it in IT and it wasn’t because IT couldn’t do it. You know we have a fantastic IT team, but we wanted to make it clear from the get go that we’re doing these things for business reasons, to accomplish business aims and to drive business value, and for that reason, you know, we wanted to make sure it was, it was business led.

So I think that was. You know that’s a. That’s been a big change, that that we’ve had to work through and people have really embraced it. You know we have some really talented leaders, you know, in lending and in deposits. And then you know, you know business development in all aspects and they’re all becoming smarter about the data that they have and understanding their data better, and how it can be used to drive them forward, as well as technology, including Salesforce.

0:12:20 – Fred Cadena
So let’s say, as you know, john, I’ve worked with a lot of clients, and you guys as well, but it’s in my experience, I think, that you and BCU has done one of the better jobs I’ve seen in getting business leaders to embrace, leveraging data and insights. And I’m kind of curious like what has been your secret sauce. You know, how did you get these old school credit union executives to really embrace data and really buy into the program?

0:12:49 – John Sahagian
Tenacity. I think I mean you know what. I think that because you know I didn’t come from technology. Really, I came from, you know, marketing and sales and service. I came from the business side of things. So I was really intentional about when we were, when we were talking about these technologies and what they can do. I’m not talking in technical terms, I’m talking in business terms, you know. I’m talking in terms of creating real value that are going to help us achieve our vision for what we want to do with our organization and how we want to serve our members. So I think that’s a really big part of it. The other thing was you just have to find who your champions are in the organization, like people that get it. You got to figure out who those folks are that early on they’re grasping the vision that you’re laying out there and I think, and then you work with them to create small successes and then you build those small successes into bigger successes and you just keep kind of adding on that way and that’s the way we’ve been successful.

Even the most supportive people in the business had doubts early on in our Salesforce journey. It was like, oh wow, this is really a big deal and this is this can be difficult and this is a lot of work and this is a different way of thinking, but credit to my colleagues who had the vision themselves to persevere through some of those tough points and get to the get to the gold, you know, get to the value delivery that we all dreamed of. But you know, it would be foolhardy to think that you’re going to get there without some doubt, without some difficulty. So those are the two things finding people, you know, talking in business terms, finding who your advocates and your, you know the folks who are going to advocate for this vision within the organization, and then working with them to build small successes and then making sure everybody knows about those small successes.

0:14:52 – Fred Cadena
I love it and you know, just to build on that a little bit like, let’s get to the so, what? So? What are those successes? How is Salesforce really enabled, and together with the data program, to better understand and serve your members? You know, what insights has it provided and how is that really being leveraged by the business?

0:15:13 – John Sahagian
You know I mean there’s many, many ways that you know we’ve used it to better understand our business and our members. You know, maybe the biggest impact that it had and it had this like, like straight away was moving. You know we were always focused on, you know, transactions and you know new engagements with members start with applications. You know we didn’t.

We weren’t really a lead gathering, lead managing company. We didn’t have a CRM. You know leads were, you know scraps of paper or you know Excel files that you know never get opened or and they weren’t really managed. And from our member perspective, what that means is that, hey, you, you’re not getting on my journey with me until I get to the point where I’m ready to start having you pull credit reports and all this kind of stuff. Well, you know now, as we started to realize that, holy cow, you know, there’s all kinds of opportunities here for us to gather leads, which isn’t just saying, well, we’re going to, we’re going to be hardcore selling our members. No, we look at it as these leads are giving us insights, they’re giving us clues to the journeys that our members are on. Already right, and before we weren’t picking up on those clues and it’s like now we are. So that was huge, for our management of sales across BCU was like now we’re going to start collecting and managing leads and it’s different than just you know, trying to have you know good pull through on on consumer loan applications, for example. So that that was a huge part of how we were able to learn more about our members.

I think another thing would be about.

We’ve always we not always, but for the last, you know, several years we’ve had a different platform that we use not as extensive or powerful sales force, but something that we were able to pull together all the balances from all the different, you know, back office systems so that, at least from my account standpoint, when a member’s in front of you or you’re on the phone with them, you have a consolidated look of all their relationships with you.

But what’s really cool now and you know we’re still on this journey ourselves, but we’re now roping in, okay you not only see what all their accounts are and what their transactions are in Salesforce, but now you can see well what marketing they received. How have they, you know, how have they interacted with that marketing? And, just as important, maybe more important, what interactions have they had across channels? Right and what, where? Where are those interactions that you know? So having visibility into our members, you know, across all these different channels and points of their journey, has really kind of broadened our perspective of how we see a member that’s standing before us today.

0:18:04 – Fred Cadena
I think that’s fantastic and I love that vision of really eliminating those data silos and bringing into your point not just transactions, not just balances, but marketing engagement and, you know, branch engagement and all these other things. I know that one of the things that I frequently struggle with when I work with clients is like helping them identify. You know all those data silos right. You know you mentioned before in the answer, you know lead tracking wasn’t really done but it probably was right, like people had their little Excel sheets and they had their little notebooks and they had their little you know workarounds and that type of thing I’m sure exists all over the organization. So how did you like succeed in getting people to you know trust and kind of hand over their little shadow solution so you could get to that level of transparency?

0:18:55 – John Sahagian
Well, for starters, we didn’t ask Right. So you know I credit our president, you know, who made it very clear early on, is just like, hey, we’re we’re going with, we’re making a big investment in moving down this path with Salesforce and this is how we’re going to operate, you know. You know from a sales standpoint, from a service standpoint, and quite frankly I’ll tell you that, yeah, there were a little, you know, shadow kind of lead management capabilities across the organization, but they were really small and really ineffective. So I was also, fred, really heavily selling on the idea that there is all this opportunity out there. You all have goals in your you know different, you know business units and groups, different branches, etc. You guys all have goals and there’s all this untapped opportunity to help our members that we’ve never had visibility to before.

But you just you need to commit some resources to actually tapping in to and understanding what leads you have before you and then actually figuring out how to approach those members and you know, one by one, as they started to see oh wait, a minute, I’m falling behind in my goals, maybe a little bit.

I’m going to start calling on more of those leads it becomes a, I mean, it starts to really feed itself, because they start to realize, wow, without these leads I wouldn’t be able to, you know, hit these new goals that I’m getting. So, you know, really it ended up happening, I think not because I told people it had to happen, or even because our president, for that matter, told it, but really because they started seeing the results in their business. You know, oh, wow, we now have visibility to see which leads turned into actual applications, which turned into actual booked product. And there was a bit of an eye opening where we said, wow, there’s a you know it’s still, it’s a relatively, you know, small percentage by the nature of leads, but it’s meaningful number when you take a look at how much of it ended up with with actual engagements with members. So I think when people have started to see that, wow, this is actually fuel for what I’m trying to do, they all, they started, one by one, to jump on board.

0:21:09 – Fred Cadena
That’s fantastic. I love that it’s. It’s a little bit of stick but a lot of carrot, a lot of like. Here’s what’s in it for you and and seeing those successes and seeing that build. I and I don’t say this in a way to say that like designing intentional, positive user experiences. That important, because it is, but I think some of the best like user experience work that can be done is just designing a process that’s going to give, you know, great results and give people a reason to to want to engage with the system. So I love that.

0:21:38 – John Sahagian
So I’ve got to ask oh, go ahead, go ahead. You know, as I’m thinking back on it, and there was, there was something that I felt I had to do, but it made me very, very unpopular for a while. I don’t know, maybe I’m still very unpopular, but it was.

0:21:54 – Fred Cadena
Well, you’re popular here. You’re popular here.

0:21:56 – John Sahagian
I’m amongst friends. This is good, but you know across you know I have all the different branches and all the different call centers, etc. That we’re all utilizing and managing leads. What I started doing is I started pulling together a dashboard and Salesforce that had all the who’s doing a good job and who’s not, and I started circulating that on a weekly basis to you know, the senior leadership team, and so it. That’s.

The other thing about you know, working with a system like Salesforce is that you can’t you can’t deny the data. You know it’s now tracking what you’re doing with all the opportunities and leads that you’re getting. So there were those people who you could see wow they’re, they’re calling on, you know, 95% of their leads and this group over here is calling on only 3% of the leads. What’s going on? So there was some, you know, intentional pressure that was placed on people simply by giving visibility to what was actually happening, and I think that in the end, they’re all thankful for it because they all, you know, now are on board and are seeing the value in their business results of pursuing those leads.

0:23:05 – Fred Cadena
No, I love that. I love that healthy competition and a little bit of exposure and shining a light on stuff like that. And I’m sure it probably opened up a lot of cases where the reason wasn’t that necessarily that people were resistant, but that people just needed to understand how to use the system better or they had questions or just a new process, and so it really helps make sure that you’ve got the right support that users need when they’re when they’re stepping into a new system and a new process. I got to ask because it’s 2023 and literally everybody’s talking about it and you run the data program, so I’m sure you’ve been giving it a lot of thought. But what are you thinking? What’s BCU thinking about? How to leverage? You know all the progress has been made lately in AI, llms and kind of other. You know sophisticated predictive models. You know, are you finding a lot of impactful use cases and what are you guys thinking from that perspective?

0:24:05 – John Sahagian
Yeah, you know, I think we have high hopes for you know how that’s going to impact our business. But I you know the initial, you know, because this, this really did come on pretty fast, right, and it was like this massive step forward in a very short period of time.

0:24:19 – Dane Grove
Yeah.

0:24:21 – John Sahagian
So I think we were no different than everybody else where our first reaction was oh no, how do we protect ourselves from this? You know how do we keep our employees from putting member numbers into? And I think that you know so we had the same freak out. Everybody else did is just like you know what? How could this, you know, negatively impact our business? And we did. You know we, we built, you know all the acceptable use, you know standards and we’ve, you know, worked with our employees to make sure they understand how to use this technology safely. So we’re past the freak out point and we’re now really trying to gather as much information as we can to understand how this you know what are gonna be the early use cases that that you know large language models are gonna are really gonna have a meaningful, valuable impact on VCU. And that’s the thing. New technology comes out and we’re like, oh, we got to be thinking about what it’s gonna do for us five years from now. I’ve been very clear with our management team that I think this is gonna change how we operate, at least to a certain degree, within the next 12 months. You know this is gonna, it’s gonna happen pretty quickly. I don’t necessarily see us building any, any custom. You know Applications for these, these models. In the near term, what I see us really starting to do is you know we’re we use Microsoft to a large extent on the technical and on the data side. We use Salesforce to a large extent on the sales service marketing side, and both of those Platforms and those companies are, I think, doing a pretty amazing job at very quickly finding ways to, you know kind of embed capabilities that anyone can use into existing tools that we’re already using. I Think that’s where we’re really gonna start to see near-term value is, just by leveraging. You know those tools. You know, for example, you know some of the ways that Microsoft is building. You know the open AI technology into power. Bi, I think is gonna really help us push forward that. You know the whole notion of Analytics self-service and data self-service big time. When you start to allow people to try and seek insights using the English language instead of Python, suddenly you know there is an opportunity for way more people to start to interact with your data in a very meaningful way.

And on the Salesforce side of things, you know we’re a user of Knowledge. You know for the knowledge base, so we have hundreds and hundreds of articles that talk about our. You know they’re both internal articles and member-facing articles, but they talk about our, our processes and our policies and you know, so, you know when, when we have the ability for these powerful tools to go through and say, okay, train yourself and consume. You know these hundreds of different, you know policies and and processes. Now suddenly it becomes a really powerful tool if you know internally, but also eventually externally, for members for more conversational Support.

You know, hey, what’s, you know what’s the, you know what’s our policy about such and such or how. You know, you know how do I, you know how do I process, you know this type of request and having it come back to you very quickly with a very meaningful BCU specific answer, that’s huge. So long-winded answer to your question, fred, but really in the near term, I see us leveraging, you know, the tools we’re already using Within these platforms that have just been kind of juiced with With this new technology and I think it’s it’s gonna have a meaningful impact how we work.

0:28:01 – Dane Grove
I love that approach and I’ve actually been following some of the stories, microsoft in particular, how they’re baking in, you know, generative AI across a number of different products. I think actually their stock prices are surging big time around some of that news and some of those development, so be interesting to see that story continued unfold.

0:28:24 – Fred Cadena
And I don’t know. Dane John, both of you, because I probably a lot of our audience is not as familiar with you know what Microsoft is doing in power BI. Like I don’t know. If we want to, you know, just Dig into that a little bit. But I’m curious because I don’t know what Microsoft is doing with power BI right now.

0:28:40 – John Sahagian
Well, I think what you know, what you’re seeing them do, is they they’re they’re essentially and they’re branding it co-pilot and it’s basically they are building this AI Powered you know capability into all their different you know office products, into GitHub, into Windows itself, so that you can start interacting with all of their different tools in a more natural and conversational way. So, for example, fred, you know they’ll give you the and you go out and you know any of your listeners can go on to YouTube, and there’s just you know dozens and dozens of of these. But, you know, an example would be taking a you know, a you know 10-page paper or summary paper that was done on a particular opportunity and then feeding that in and saying, hey, give me a three slide, you know PowerPoint deck to summarize this and It’ll it’ll. You know, read through your 10-page document and it’ll it’ll come up with here. Here’s a PowerPoint, you know presentation for you to give a summary of this board.

0:29:45 – Fred Cadena
Which is, it sounds like, as a consultant, I might be out of a job, so just kidding.

0:29:50 – Dane Grove
Yeah, speaking of, you know, Microsoft embedding and not to, not to continue down this vein, I’m actually, you know, for those that are maybe looking for like kind of freebie transformers to To play with, experiment with or use day in and day out for for work. I’m really fond of being, I’m really impressed with being. It does not have the date restrictions that I experienced in chat. Gpt I Understand it to be based on GPT for, so I’m pretty impressed with it. Switching gears, you know, kind of going back a little bit, thinking of the pandemic how did the pandemic impact your digital transformation efforts? What changed? What has continued to evolve, even through today?

0:30:41 – John Sahagian
You know, I think our story is probably similar to a lot of you know, or most people’s you know, stories that impacted us all. You know, in many ways the same way. You know, early on, obviously it was about the you know the accelerating shift to digital. You know we were already along that path. You know we already knew digital was the future. More and more member interactions were going that way. I mean this just, you know, kind of it was that it was super accelerated and so it. It was good because it gave us the, the, you know, the opportunity to really put our back into you know what we were doing on the digital side of things, and for good reason. And I think that shift, you know, continues. It’s not like, you know, the branches open back up and everybody, you know, shifted back, you know, away from digital. I think that there’s still very much, you know, momentum moving towards, towards that.

And you know, the thing that for us, I think was a, you know, a really big rallying cry was this notion that as a part of our strategic direction, you know, our speed to innovate really had to accelerate. Right, you know we were always able to, you know, to innovate, but generally we were. We were a little sluggish in how and how we would do it and we really came to the agreement and the understanding that, look For us to be able to compete five years from now, we are going to have to learn to innovate way faster than we are today. So that continues to be something that is fueling us to say we need to get better and better and better. It, you know, really pushed us to accelerate our agile transformation, you know. So we’ve really, as an organization, largely moved from almost entirely waterfall to being, you know, very, very much Agile at this point, including our Salesforce program, which is great.

So that’s huge, I think, the the biggest way that it impacted our members. And again, this is not unique to us, but you know they saw market volatility. They saw, you know, the, the stimulus packages and you know the shifting Spending patterns as people were kind of hunkering in at home, deleveraging, and then all of a sudden, now we’re, you know, we’re seeing kind of the pendulum swing back the other way and we’ve got inflation and raid hikes and we’re seeing unsecured lending Climbing and and and consumer delinquency, you know, starting to climb as well. So I think that it’s it’s been a real roller coaster ride, you know, not only for us as a business and in the credit union, but for our members in general. So it’s, it’s, it’s been, it’s been quite the ride. It continues to be quite the ride.

I think, regardless and this is my last point on this is that I think the, the pandemic and how it pushed us to shift our view of you know where Our investment, data and and technology platforms. It really pushed us more in that direction and I think it’s really well positioned us to succeed, no matter what the future brings. You know there’s a lot of potential futures that are that are coming our way, but I’m a really strong believer that, you know, those investments in data and technology platforms have really positioned us to. No matter what comes, we have the ability to keep up. We have the ability to to evolve in however way our members need in order for us to continue to be relevant to them. So that’s to me, that’s the biggest outcome of the. The pandemic is really shifting us toward that mindset. It’s an amazing point.

0:34:10 – Dane Grove
I yeah, I’m curious. I don’t know if this is more, because I guess a lot of the Customer behavior, if you will, that that you guys are examining. You know that digital footprint it’s more like b2c than b2b, right and and so I don’t know if this is more of a b2b thing, but it has customer behavior, sort of online digital footprint. Customer behavior changed as a result of the pandemic.

0:34:37 – John Sahagian
So one thing that’s, I think, unique about bcu is that, you know, because we’re not a primarily community credit union, um, you know, we’ve always, you know we have, we have a lot of members, more than half of our members don’t have access to a branch. Right, if they wanted it, they didn’t. They don’t have access one way or the other. So by our very nature, we always had to be, you know, kind of digital digital first in a way, and but I think that’s only accelerated if, if we take a look dain today at our interactions and I don’t know the exact number, but I want to say it’s something, it’s super high it’s like 97 or 98 of all interactions happen through Uh, digital channels, with the majority of that happening through, you know, our mobile Um uh solutions, our mobile app in particular. So you know, I think that was largely the case before, but it’s absolutely accelerated even more that way.

And I think that the, the, the legacy Thinking in our organization, you know, we have a tendency to think about Branch and call center first, you know, and then we adapt it to digital. And I think when people talk about digital first, they’re really saying no, you solve for the digital solution first and then you figure out how to you know kind of make that to to to you know, alter that so that it’s more palatable for those other channels. Um, so that’s that’s really forced us towards thinking you know truly digital first and saying you know we can’t alter you know branch and call center Experiences for digital. It’s got to be the other way around great points, john.

0:36:13 – Dane Grove
Thinking big picture. What are your top priorities? I mean where you’re focusing right now.

0:36:19 – John Sahagian
Well, I think, right now, you know. So we started out really focusing on sales first, you know, with Salesforce, I think it’s a natural fit for Salesforce. We had the greatest need there and you know, the revenue that’s generated in sales really, you know, made it far more palatable from a investment standpoint.

0:36:39 – Fred Cadena
It definitely helps pay for it right?

0:36:41 – John Sahagian
Exactly Just like okay, let’s get that first, you know, so that people go along with it. So. But so we’ve done that and we continue to evolve that, but really we’ve kind of we’ve shifted in the last year and a half or so to really focusing heavily on service. So, going all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, when I mentioned about being in the service organization and you know being, you know I like to call it the alt tab department, you know, because they’re constantly switching, you know, between different platforms and copying and pasting, and all the while trying to keep up a pleasant conversation with the member they have in the phone. So we are really right now shifting service into into Salesforce in a big way.

0:37:25 – Dane Grove
And that’s a big.

0:37:26 – John Sahagian
That’s a big effort because it’s not just, you know, putting a script in Salesforce. You know, there’s all the back end pieces to it’s just like, instead of saying, you know, notated here and then go to this system and perform the transaction and then go to this system and, you know, submit something else, it’s like, no, it’s all part of one fluid flow that happens in one system and it happens to be the same system where you’re, you’re also answering your phone and taking your notes and all that kind of thing. So it’s a big shift and it’s taking taking us a good long while, but I think it’s it’s really worth it. So that’s that’s shifting service we are. We’re really trying to double down.

When we look at our MPS feedback, one of the things that we hear a lot from our members is you could do a lot better in terms of follow up. You know I always get great service when I talk to bcu, but sometimes I wonder where I am in the process. So we’re really trying to standardize how we’re communicating with members in a more you know kind of automated fashion so that, as we you know whether it’s a loan application or whether it’s a, you know, service request, we’re trying to very intentionally increase the transparency to the members of where are we at with this. Don’t leave them hanging right. So that’s another piece. And then third and this is going back to sales and where we are and kind of maturing the sales piece, and I you guys will have to help me here because I don’t even know Salesforce changes names of products all the time.

0:38:57 – Fred Cadena
I don’t know. I can have a bingo card. I have no idea.

0:39:02 – John Sahagian
Well, there’s a tool that that we started using, called high velocity sales inside of Salesforce.

0:39:07 – Fred Cadena
Awesome tool.

0:39:08 – John Sahagian
Yes, super powerful tool, and I think they’ve changed the name I don’t know what it’s called anymore because we still call it high velocity sales at BCU but this is something that really it allows our sales, it allows our sales management teams to build cadences for all the different kind of sales journeys that that have to occur. And by doing that, they’re able to say, in this sort of a situation where you, let’s say, have a you know a member contacting us because they’re thinking about purchasing a car from you know a third party, it’s like, okay, cool, we have a cadence built for that that says here’s the information that they are most likely going to want to understand and know about. Here’s certain you know things that we’re going to need in the process. You know, here’s the follow up kind of cadence that we want to have in terms of you know, after this stuff, don’t wait more than a day to call them back. So it really allows us to take all the sales best practices that you know we’re always just, you know, the best sales reps had the best sales practices and they would try and, you know, share some of that or not, you know with their colleagues to help them.

This kind of like says, no, we’re actually going to, we’re going to configure the cadence with those best practices in mind and what’s really awesome about this? And then I’ll get off off it. But it allows the, the business teams themselves to manage and administer kind of their own cadences, so as they want to play with it and see if well, what if we moved from a one day follow up to a two day follow up, will we actually have better results? They can do these kind of alterations to their cadences and now they are really have the tools that they need in order to try and optimize sales practices. So that’s been getting, you know, rave reviews from our sales teams. We’re just trying to keep up with all the requests we’re getting to turn that on.

0:41:03 – Fred Cadena
That’s phenomenal and if I know you, you’re probably looking at all the analytics behind it and just seeing how each of these iterations is moving the needle one way or the other. I think that’s fantastic. I love high velocity sales as a product and I love the idea of giving that empowerment you know closer to the people, that kind of see it every day and really kind of reducing that cycle time that it takes to really go through and test different things. That’s, that’s phenomenal. One last question before we wrap up, just to kind of take a step back and like big picture. I know you spent a lot of time not just looking at BCU but thinking about the broader credit union industry. You know what do you think the future looks like for credit unions and generally for financial institutions around digital transformation? You know what’s what’s on the horizon?

0:41:55 – John Sahagian
Well, you know, I’ve spent my entire career in credit unions. You know so I’m very, you know biased and partial to you know kind of the you know the philosophy of our movement and the true, you know truly purposeful, you know intent of the entire you know system and you know so I think that you know that is going to continue to resonate with you know, with you know, consumers, and I think we’re going to continue to have that as something that is going to push us forward. Where I think it’s going to be hard is that you know, like we talked about before, member expectations around experiences, digital experiences in particular. They’re only going to accelerate, right, so you know they have access to. You know more. You know data driven tools and we have a you know the population is aging. You know you have we used to talk about millennials as those kids that were coming up.

Millennials are like you know, I think they’re in their 30s and 40s, right? So it’s like these are you know. They’re at the center of where we’re trying to be and they have even you know, even you know deeper expectations in terms of what we’re able to deliver digitally.

So I think the role of data and intelligence. It’s going to continue to grow and it’s going to further separate winners and losers and I think folks that take a more traditional approach to things without leveraging data and technology, I think they’re going to start to really lag behind this. I think, plus, you know, the increasing regulatory burdens that are that are here too. I think it’s going to drive credit unions that can continue to consolidate, you know, because there’s just going to be a you know kind of a minimum scale in order for folks to really sink their teeth into and understand and leverage data and technology to make those experiences possible that our members absolutely want. So I think you know, you know really key technology investments and then also building key technology partnerships the combination of those two things is going to be absolutely critical for, you know, fis to compete in the future.

0:44:14 – Dane Grove
You know, john, I’m hitting it kind of squarely what advice do you have for other CDOs, other chief data officers or credit union leaders generally who are guiding their organization through rapid change?

0:44:30 – John Sahagian
So, you know, I think that credit unions really have to understand clearly what their strategic vision is, and they have to also understand, regardless of where the world is going, you know, how will their strategic vision position them to sustain success, regardless of you know what’s coming right. And I think a big part of that is understanding the role of data and technology are going to play in your strategic vision, and I think that we have to. We tend to look at technology and data, as you know, an IT thing, like we talked about before. We really need to start, you know, building technical competency within all the different business units. It needs to become an enterprise competency in order for us to really drive it forward at the speed that our members expect us to.

And then, lastly, I think that you know, as we’re building these visions and these roadmaps, we also have to be really careful not to trip over ourselves. Right, we need to dream big, we need to expect big things out of our companies and what we’re able to deliver to our members, but we also have to make sure that we set our expectations and our roadmapping properly so that we execute small. So, dream big, but, you know, execute small, put one foot in front of the other, and if you don’t do that, you will end up tripping over yourself. So that’s it. Have a great vision, make sure you understand how data and technology fit into that vision and then plan to make sure that you have a roadmap that is realistic, that is going to get you there.

0:46:09 – Fred Cadena
I love the long term vision. You know the big picture, the magic that you want to create for your members, broken down into those really digestible, executable steps. I think that’s a formula for success. John, I appreciate it. This has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for your time, especially on a Friday where I’m sure you’ve got a lot of things going on. As we wrap up, tell me if our listeners want to reach out to you, what’s the best way for them to find you?

0:46:38 – John Sahagian
You know, linkedin is the best way to get in touch with me. So if you don’t mind, you know you can share my LinkedIn profile on the pod. I’m more than happy to connect. In fact, I like connecting with people because I always learn something with everybody I talk to.

0:46:57 – Fred Cadena
Well, fantastic. We’ll definitely include your LinkedIn profile on the show notes. And thanks again for your time, John Hope we get to talk again soon.

0:47:04 – John Sahagian
Yep, you guys, this was, this was a blast. Thanks, appreciate it.

0:47:14 – Fred Cadena
And we’re back with Quick Takes, dan. First thing I wanted to bring up this week was a big rebrand announcement from Twitter. Or should, I guess I say now, x? The bird is dead. Elon Musk has directed users to not call them tweets anymore. They’re called X’s. What are your takes? What do you think about this rebrand? I know you give a lot of thought to marketing and branding.

0:47:39 – Dane Grove
Well, interesting question. I feel like it’s really risky. I’m not going to try and pretend that I understand what’s going on in Elon’s head right now. In the past he’s been brilliant, you know, from a product standpoint, and maybe this is all going to land in an amazing place, but right now it just looks really really messy.

0:48:04 – Fred Cadena
I’m 100% with you on that. I’m a pretty big fan of Scott Galloway and I liked his take. He said if I were to take a company and give them $10 billion in 10 years and tell them to create a brand that is well-known as Twitter and the bird icon, it’s $50, $50 if they’re going to be able to do it. And I think Twitter just took $10 billion or more of brand equity and value and just threw it out in the street. I mean, it’s definitely getting some headlines. You know we’re talking about it, everybody’s talking about it.

I also think it was just really sloppy. I don’t know. I’ve stopped. I’ve mentioned the podcast before. I’ve stopped using Twitter, you know frequently years ago. I still have the app. I’ll glance at it every once in a while. I’ve got some group chats on Twitter that I keep up with, but I’m not a frequent user. But when the rebrand was announced, I had to go poke around and it’s really sloppy. Like you know, there’s some places where you see the X but you see the bird logo right next to it or right below it. The app is still completely branded as Twitter with the bird icon and everything. So I’m also maybe not a surprise, but just a really sloppy rollout. You know, have you been on the platform much since the rebrand?

0:49:21 – Dane Grove
I really haven’t. I’m sometimes surprised when I’m reading through my News Plus app and I get directed toward you know something on Twitter. I keep thinking when is that going to change Some of the things that I came across here? So I guess, like X has warned advertisers that, beginning August the 7th, brand accounts will lose their verification if they haven’t spent at least $1,000 on ads in the previous 30 days, or $6,000 in the previous 180 days, I think it’s more of this playing around with verification, the blue check mark the verification check mark, used to mean something.

0:50:11 – Fred Cadena
Now it’s for sale, and this is just another indication that we’re not concerned with whether or not this is a trustworthy actor. This is somebody who is who they represent. They are. We really only care that they’ve paid 12 bucks a month in the case of individuals, or that they’ve bought thousands of dollars of ads, if they’re an advertiser.

0:50:33 – Dane Grove
Yeah, all the things not to do. From a change management standpoint, it’s an interesting case study.

I think in that regard it’s switching gears and teeing up four day work week. So I guess the longer people have worked in new and efficient ways, the more their work week shrank over time and after six months workers said that they had less burnout, improved health, more job satisfaction, had cut their average work time by about four hours to 34 hours a week. But I guess really what they’re driving at is that with time and practice we seem to be getting really good at the four day work week. What’s your take?

0:51:20 – Fred Cadena
Four day work week is something that I continue to like the sound of. I don’t know that I am a four day work week person. I currently work six or seven days a week, but I am very much a flexible person. One of the things that I’ve liked the most about transitioning from being on the industry side to consulting for the last 10 years is the flexibility to blend my work day with personal stuff and deal with family things or medical things or appointments or just heck if it’s. I don’t like to go to Costco on Saturdays, so I can go to Costco at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday and I just know that I’m gonna pick that work up somewhere else. So whatever it takes to, I think, give people more flexibility, especially if they’re not in a naturally flexible role, I’m 100% poor.

0:52:18 – Dane Grove
Absolutely. I’m bringing up some great points, I think the one that you make about just having flexibility. I think that’s the point that resonates with me the most. I’m not sure I’m a four day work week person either, but I do want flexibility. That’s important, so love it.

0:52:38 – Fred Cadena
Yeah, totally. Speaking of getting additional flexibility, you know AI once again for the rescue. I say that a little bit tug and cheek. I don’t think you paid a lot of attention to earnings.

This last week, microsoft and Google’s parent, alphabet, both had interesting earnings reports. They’re both making a ton of money no surprise there and they’re turning around and pouring all of that money back into AI Alphabet actually. And now they spent just under $7 billion in Cat-Bax for the current quarter. It was about a billion less than what Wall Street was expecting, but the CFO came back around and said look, we’re gonna keep increasing Cat-Bax every quarter for the rest of this year and into next year. And then she specifically said it’s for AI, it’s to invest more in the AI opportunity. And then, right on the heels of that, microsoft not to be outdone they had an $8.9 billion record Cat-Bax year over year 30% jump, and they have also committed to continue to increase that amount every quarter through the new fiscal year, and once again for AI investments specifically. So a lot of money going to AI. I know you and I talk about these topics quite a bit. You’ve been playing around a lot with Bing lately. You know what are your thoughts Is this money well spent?

0:54:09 – Dane Grove
Clearly it is. You know, I guess Microsoft has like similar ideas to Salesforce, sort of providing like almost like these anchor points throughout their products where you know people can land like a transformer or some generative AI and LLM, you know, something that’s bringing value. But I think differently. I think Microsoft is wanting to, you know, also provide the products themselves, the generative AI products themselves. So it’s not as much of a, you know, bring your own model to the party approach as what we’re seeing from Salesforce, but I think it definitely makes a lot of sense. I’m curious to see what Google’s doing, Like I hear they’re really pushing hard in the direction of Bard and Chatbot. You know, I think in their minds, their, you know, their Chatbots are gonna be everywhere doing lots of helpful things, you know, across sales service and just a number of different areas I’m with you.

0:55:14 – Fred Cadena
I mean clearly Microsoft’s making much more public moves, much more quick product availability. I know that I hear and continue to hear from you know both public reporting and just people. I know in the industry that Google has a lot of advanced AI that it’s been keeping under wraps and I’m with you. I am eager to see how they’re gonna put that in the search engine. We’re both Google doc users and I definitely read some of the Microsoft product enhancements. You know where they’re baking more generative AI into Word and Excel and PowerPoint and I’m like when are we gonna start to see some of those features built into the Google workflows, whether it’s from Google’s models or you know more of a bring your own model approach? But I think Microsoft’s been firing on all cylinders. You know they had the early partnership that continues with open AI. They recently just announced that. You know tight partnership with Meta on the Lama 2 model that they just put out. So they’re definitely investing.

0:56:17 – Dane Grove
Definitely seems like it. So we were just talking about Salesforce and AI. I guess they’ve announced general availability and pricing for GPT powered features across sales and service. So, in particular, if you have purchased unlimited edition, you’re eligible to use GPT powered capabilities now and then Salesforce GPT is included in sales cloud Einstein at $50 per user per month, including a limited number of Einstein GPT credits. Have you been following this story, fred?

0:56:57 – Fred Cadena
Yeah, I’ve been following it really with a lot of anticipation. You know, obviously, a lot of the clients I talked to that you just have some of you are very eager, you know, if they weren’t in the beta to understand. You know what the use cases are, how this is gonna work. You know how much is it gonna cost them. You know I think this was a you know bit of a good news. Bad news, right Like good news.

This is not a completely new, completely different license type that you have to buy. You know bad news If you don’t have those and you want GPT, you know you’ve got something to put on your Salesforce shopping list. And then further bad news, and I’ve not been able to discover a lot of data on what those limits are. You know they’re capping the GPT usage and you know, obviously I think that makes some sense. You know you don’t want, you know, something that’s very computationally heavy. You don’t wanna give it all you can eat and make it be a not profitable type of product. But not knowing what those limits are, not knowing what the extension packs cost at this point, I think that’s gonna add a lot of uncertainty.

0:58:05 – Dane Grove
Absolutely. You know this might be a stretch, but I’m gonna go there. You know, I think in the past. You know you think about products like Gong, for example, the ability for us to sort of model ourselves after top performers, which certainly points to content usage as well. I wonder if they’re gonna bake in some. You know some sort of capability where you know, because there is limited use, you do wanna make sure that you’re not, you know, pressing too hard just because of computational requirements et cetera. But will we do a better job of kind of modeling after you know what’s working really well content-wise et cetera? And if so, what does that look like?

0:58:54 – Fred Cadena
I think there’s definitely a lot of power in that. When I’ve seen some of the stuff that’s been announced for Marketing Cloud and certainly you know where I can see AI play a stronger role in something like a data cloud where you’re able to really get much more responsive feedback on different offers and different messages that you’re putting in front of people and letting you know the volume. Basically, you know, give you better messages and double down on what’s responding. I think there’s a lot of power yet to come and on those fronts, so definitely send it to keep an eye out for as well, for sure. Just you know well we’re on the topic of Salesforce and AI. Salesforce continues to make additional news on the AI front. Last week, mark Finneoff did an interview with the Associated Press. I think the top line headline that I kept seeing over and over again was the quote that AI is not just the most important technology of our lifetime, but probably the most important technology in any lifetime. So I’m just gonna ask you know, top line, what’s your reaction? You agree, disagree?

1:00:05 – Dane Grove
It’s a bold statement. It could be true. I mean airplanes, cars, running water, electricity. I go in head to head with some pretty notable you know technologies and accomplishments over the years, but there could be truth to that. What’s your opinion?

1:00:25 – Fred Cadena
Yeah, I’m a little bit with you. There’s a lot of contenders for, you know, the most important technology. I think that AI is obviously built on the backs of lots of other enabling technologies right, the wheel, the microprocessor. You know internet. You know there’s so many things that are required to bring us to AI to now say that AI is going to somehow transcend all of those and be the most important, you know, of all time, including whatever we can imagine in the future. You know stable quantum computing. You know stable fission. You know electric generation. You know who knows what might come. I’m a Star Trek guy. Warp travel, like who knows what’s coming in the next 100 years, 200 years, 500 years.

I think it’s a little hyperbolic, but I do think it was said to get attention right, like this is not just another small shift. This is not ruling out. You know business intelligence dashboards. This is not ruling out. You know a faster way to calculate. You know a particular piece of data. This is a technology that is literally going to touch everyone. You know workers. Obviously it’s going to touch, I think, most, if not all. You know jobs, certainly a lot of the white-collar jobs that have been, you know, less impacted by technology than some of the blue-collar jobs have been. I think it’s going to touch all of us as consumers, and certainly one of the things that I am concerned about, just as an individual, a consumer, a citizen in this country, is the pervasive effects of AI and, like the trustworthiness of you know how much computer-generated content is going to be out there and a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek reaction.

But I don’t know if you caught the commercial that Salesforce released this week with Matt McConaughey. It’s a short 15-minute. I think it’s only on the streamers and on social media. I haven’t seen it on TV yet, but it’s Matt McConaughey, you know, in a computer-generated Wild West town and he just kind of looks up and says so, if AI is the Wild West, well, who’s the sheriff around here? And you know no solutions, no answers.

It fades to a Salesforce logo where it says you know, ask more of AI. But I think that’s the message that I think he was trying to get across, which is this is going to have a lot of impact on everyone and we need to make sure that there’s precautions, safeguards, in place. I don’t know that I’m the best person to say what those are, but like I think about things like you know watermarking AI images or, you know, having disclosure that you know a piece of content was computer-generated, or making sure that when somebody puts computer-generated content out on a platform, there’s some level of moderation to make sure that it’s not spreading intentionally or unintentionally misinformation. So I think there’s a lot of things to sort out and I think it’s a big job ahead for all of us.

1:03:38 – Dane Grove
Yeah, definitely, definitely going to be an interesting story to follow. I mean, you know, I think about using AI to sort of double down, enhance my productivity. I love it for that use case, but when I definitely when I start to think about it in terms of, you know, misinformation, news stories, I mean there’s plenty of that kind of false flag stuff happening, I think, around the world and it’s just going to get tougher and tougher to figure out which way’s up at times. So I like where they’re going with the message and I think it’s key. I think it’s really important. We’ve got to get our arms around that piece. Yeah, sooner rather than later.

1:04:22 – Fred Cadena
I saw Oppenheimer this last weekend. I don’t know if you have a chance to see it yet or not, but great movie. I highly recommend it and a lot of lessons to be learned there, one of which is, you know, with any new technology, with any great new power, there’s a lot of ethical questions to work out. There’s a lot of things that you need to contend with around how are you going to use it? How are you going to, you know, make sure that it’s providing more good for society than evil? And I think that you know part of what made the movie such a compelling story is looking at how various players Oppenheimer and others in that environment, you know, kind of wrestled with it, and we can have a debate about whether or not things turned out great or not, but we’re here sitting with our own Oppenheimer moment, like we’re all sitting here playing our parts in the evolution of this new technology, and I think we need to be ready to make sure that we’re guiding it in a way that it provides more good to society than not.

1:05:31 – Dane Grove
Awesome point. Fred Couldn’t agree more Good movie and I think it’s easy to draw those comparisons. That makes a lot of sense.

1:05:40 – Fred Cadena
Awesome. Well, Dane, another great episode. I appreciate you joining again today for the Quick Takes and we’ll talk again soon. Have a great day. Well, everyone, we hope you enjoyed episode eight of Banking on Disruption. Don’t forget you can find show notes and a full transcript of the show on our website, bankingondisruptioncom. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. New episodes drop every other Thursday, so we’ll see you in two weeks and in the meantime, don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Banking on Disruption. Until next time. This is Fred Cadena, wishing you success in your digital pursuits.